Inferno et Paradiso
by Harmonykat
Summary: Lily Evans' musings on betrayal.


_Disclaimer: I own none of this._

_A/N: To Cath, who has been a marvellous friend for a year now, and in honour of her birthday._

_Inferno et Paradiso _

By Kat Sintonia

The Sorting Hat never hesitated in its choice for me. The moment I heard that song, I never wavered in my decision that Gryffindor was the place for me. Despite Sev's comment that he hoped I would join him in Slytherin, I never gave it a thought once I entered that hall. But perhaps that was the base difference between us. I knew that I could never be cunning and sneaky; I had no delusions that I had wit beyond measure; I can attest for my loyalty, but I suppose the Hat saw that as bravery. But I knew that I belonged with the lions.

Sev, of course, never entirely forgave me for that, I think. He got his wish and found himself in Slytherin, cementing his double life for the next five years.

I didn't care at the time, though. We were still the very best of friends. He was the brother I had never had, and despite his other friendships, I always thought that tie was far thicker than either blood or water.

But whispers still reached my ears that I didn't care for. His sleek, sneering mentor of Lucius Malfoy loudly spoke in the great hall about pureblood glory and the inferiority of "mudbloods", a word I very quickly learned meant me and all the other muggleborns. He surrounded himself with brutish minions who were infamous for the ugly "pranks" they played on muggleborns. Sev was frequently at his side, something I disliked more and more as time went on.

But I kept quiet about it for years. Sev had never denounced me or my muggleborn friends; he never participated in what Mulciber had supposedly done to some innocent witch or wizard. To the public eye, his hands were clean, and that was all I cared about.

So we remained close, despite the pressures of our mutual Houses. Long hours were passed in the library or in the dungeons, working together on countless projects. We bounced off each other, and it was a relief to find someone who shared my enthusiasm for excellence. But we were the strange ones, Sev and I. The rest of our Houses remained in their constant and mutual enmity; he was constantly bullied by the boys in my year.

But he remained strong, despite the beatings and the random hexing, and in those days our friendship was stronger for it. We were defying the standard, and in some part of my extremely naïve mind, I was convinced that Sev and I would change the world. We, by our friendship throughout such ridiculous adversity and blood prejudice, would conquer over such petty trials. If there had been any romantic inclination on my end, I would have called us the Romeo and Juliet of the Wizarding world.

But the boys in Gryffindor were absolutely wretched. For the first four years of my Hogwarts career, James Potter and his merry band of twits made my existence utterly miserable. From James' constant taunting to Sirius' violent hatred of anything Slytherin, I endured a constant train of social abuse. My own roommates didn't understand my friendship with Sev, and the commentary on that was frequent.

By fifth year, the polarisation between my two worlds was indescribable. Sev and I were being slowly driven apart by our different friends. Our schedules were so overbearingly all-encompassing that even our study sessions together were few and far between. More and more frequently I saw him spending time with Avery and Mulciber, two Slytherins now infamous for their zeal for the Dark Arts. The dreadful whispers now started to include Sev's name on occasion, but I studiously ignored that possibility. To me, he was my old friend that I would defend no matter what.

Meanwhile, James' taunting took a new and unpleasant turn for the amorous. I honestly would rather have gouged my eyeballs out with a spoon over dinner than put up with the romantic attentions of James Potter, but Severus never seemed to understand the depth of my loathing for the obnoxious arse. Paranoia was constant from his end that I would suddenly ignore the miserable cretin's behaviour and become one of the vapid Quidditch fans madly in love with the star chaser. But I was always certain that between the two, Sev was the better man; heaven against James' hell.

That, of course, only made the sting of betrayal all the worse.

For five years, I'd defended him and myself against the cruel comments of my House. For five years, I had maintained that he was genuinely different than his friends and truly valued me as I was. For five years, I had ignored his tendencies towards the Dark Arts, glossed over the whispers I'd heard, and put my faith in someone who threw it all away in a few words.

His promise had always been that no matter what our Houses said, no matter how other people treated muggleborns like me, he would never treat me that way. I would never be just another mudblood to him.

He lied.

For that remaining week at school, I was an inconsolable wreck. The only silver lining was that my OWLs were over, so I had no reason to leave Gryffindor tower for anything except for meals, and even some of those were brought up to me. Mary McDonald, who had been cruelly hurt by Snape's friends, sat with me for a long time, trying to console me, even telling me when my betrayer sat outside my door, wanting me to forgive him for stabbing me in the back. I had abandoned all hope, and what was my heaven became my hell.

And then I went home to my family for what was quite possibly the most miserable summer of my life. Every summer before that I had an escape in town—Sev was there to make the magic-less summer a little brighter, to console me when Petunia treated me like the freak she was convinced I was. But without Sev, who I was certain was now doing Voldemort's malicious bidding, I had no escape that summer.

I found myself holed in my room, spending hours just thinking about what had happened and about the future. As a first that summer, I had the Daily Prophet delivered every morning, desperately trying to follow what was going on in my world while hiding in my room for two months.

In my extreme seclusion of that summer, I came to a lot of decisions about my life. If Snape had chosen his way, then I had chosen mine. I had always known that if things came to a head, I would defend my right to the Wizarding world, but Snape's betrayal had made things far more personal. To me, Sev had died and there was some stranger in his place, seeped deep in the Dark Arts. The Death Eaters had killed my best friend and damned him to the deepest circle of Hell, so now the war was personal to me. I knew I was too young to do anything about it, but I had decided that if there was anything in its smallest degrees that I could do, I would do it and gladly.

My return to school that fall was not a happy one. Seeing the castle again reminded me of that terrible loss of my best friend, though someone who looked just like him sat a few carriages ahead of me with his Death Eater friends. I sat down aimlessly in my own carriage, hating that I still missed our friendship so very much.

The whole castle seemed more subdued, though. The summer had been filled with news of horrible murders and terrible deeds. More and more good witches and wizards lay dead at the hands of a madman and his ruthless followers. Even James Potter and Sirius Black seemed to have been affected by the dark times; their pranks were not nearly so frequent or harmful. But we'd all by that point seen and heard things that we'd never even imagined would happen in our lifetimes. Our daily lives, even hidden away in a castle in Scotland, were changed by the destruction and violence that was now happening in the rest of the world.

There were a few of us, though, that seemed to more actively despise what was happening, though I found myself surprised in my company. I found myself talking to Sirius Black more and more frequently, a pair of outcasts from our families. Different though we were, we were both resolved that we would do something about what was going on, even if we couldn't say anything then and there.

There was a ragtag bunch of us who quietly talked about doing something, about joining the group of those we knew were fighting against the Death Eaters and Voldemort. _Voldemort..._that dread name inspired such terror in the once peaceful halls. There were those in the school who refused to speak his name, and even we found ourselves whispering it cautiously as we tried to think of ways to fight against such evil.

When James Potter first said something about fighting, I was certain it was just an act to appear courageous. As time wore on, I became increasingly convinced that he truly meant what he was saying. Over the course of the next year, I forgot my conviction that he was an arrogant arse, that his greatest triumph was glory on the Quidditch field. I forgot that I had despised him for over five years and saw a true hero in the place of a braggart.

And when his lips found mine, I didn't doubt his affection. When he whispered that he loved me, I could only reply with the same. And when I laid my hand in his as his wife, I knew that he was my piece of Heaven in a fight against Hell.


End file.
